The Prime Minister and the Director of Health have given a COVID-19 press update, these updates will continue to happen daily with an extra announcement regarding how the country will be moving forward to happen late in the afternoon on Friday.
“The priority is to ensure that the virus doesn’t take hold,” noted Bloomfield, who went on to say that there should be no blame or shame when it comes to those who test positive for COVID-19.
“The virus is the problem, people are the solution,” said Bloomfield.
There are 13 new cases of COVID-19 in the community, all of the cases are in Auckland and are linked to the original four people who tested positive earlier in the week. Details regarding the active cases will be posted on the government’s COVID-19 website.
This new cluster takes New Zealand’s active cases to a total of 36, 17 of those connected to the this outbreak. Bloomfield warned that as seen with other clusters we should expect further cases. All the close contacts of this cluster have been told to self-isolate.
The government has made it mandatory for businesses to use the NZ COVID Tracer App QR Codes and to place posters at all entrances. You can download a QR Code poster for your business here. Posters must be up before August 19th or businesses could face a penalty.
The government used the Alert function of the Tracer app for the first time this morning. They announced that there are now 986,000 Kiwis using the Tracer app, an increase of 338,000 in the last 48 hours.
When asked if extending the Level 3 restrictions in Auckland and possibly for the rest of the country is inevitable, Ardern said the decision to continue lockdown would be based on whether there are still cases within the cluster or if there are cases that aren't linked to the cluster.
They will be acting on advice from the Director-General as well.
To remind yourself of what Alert Level 3 Means for Hospitality Click here.
